Go ahead, breast cancer patients, pick up those weights

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No longer does weightlifting have to be avoided by women who have undergone treatment for breast cancer. Far from potentially causing harm, as women have been warned, a strength-building regimen appears to reduce the severity of lymphedema, a sometimes debilitating result of breast cancer surgery.

Because surgery to remove breast cancer often includes the removal of lymph nodes and vessels, the lymphatic fluid normally channeled through this system can get backed up, causing swelling in the affected arm and breast area. The condition can range from mild to severe -- even moving the arm can become difficult -- and can begin during treatment or even years afterward.

A study reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine gives new hope for managing lymphedema. In it, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere assigned 141 breast cancer survivors to participate in either a twice-weekly weight-training program or to simply be a part of a control group.

The weightlifting women started out slowly, increasing the exercises, repetitions and resistance very gradually. They wore compression garments. They were monitored by fitness professionals who knew what they were doing. And, after a year (and contrary to those longstanding fears), they had no greater limb swelling overall than women in the control group.

But this is the key: The exercising women were more likely to have a reduction in both the number of lymphedema symptoms and the severity of those symptoms. They were also more likely to have increases in upper- and lower-body strength.

Wrote the researchers in a shortened version of their report: ‘Weight lifting has generally been proscribed for women with breast-cancer-related lymphedema, preventing them from obtaining the well-established health benefits of weight lifting, including increases in bone density. ... In breast-cancer survivors with lymphedema, slowly progressive weight lifting had no significant effect on limb swelling and resulted in a decreased incidence of exacerbations of lymphedema, reduced symptoms, and increased strength.’

They added that a strength of the study was the fact that participants’ fitness regimen -- offered at YMCAs -- could easily be offered to others via the LiveStrong at YMCA program (a collaboration of the YMCA and the Lance Armstrong Foundation). Not all YMCAs currently have the program, but that’s not to say the regimen can’t be spread.

Here’s a primer on lymphedema from the Mayo Clinic, plus a fact sheet from the American Cancer Society: ‘Lymphedema: What Every Woman With Breast Cancer Should Know.’ The latter notes that, in the future, lymphedema may be less of an issue because of less-invasive surgery techniques and because doctors are learning about which lymph nodes they should preserve.

And here’s a story from Times staff writer Jeannine Stein on the overall benefits of exercise for cancer patients: ‘Cancer Patients Are Making Their Bodies Strong Again: Despite the challenges, they’re turning to exercise to help counter the side effects of treatment and to bolster healing.’

An editorial accompanying the new study in the New England Journal of Medicine, from a behavioral science professor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, states: ‘Although no cost analysis was reported, the weight-lifting intervention clearly has the potential to result in cost-savings, not only by reducing direct health care costs but also by potentially reducing the risk of disability and allowing women to return to work at full capacity, either within or outside the home.’

— Tami Dennis